How the US Started Code Breaking | The Codebreaker | American Experience | PBS

When WWI began, the United States military had no code-breaking agency to decode enemy messages and encode their own. Enter Elizebeth and William Friedman.

Based on the book "The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies," THE CODEBREAKER reveals the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government would send infamous gangsters to prison in the 1920s and bring down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII. Her remarkable contributions would come to light decades after her death, when secret government files were unsealed. But together with her husband, the legendary cryptologist William Friedman, Elizebeth helped develop the methods that led to the creation of the powerful new science of cryptology and laid the foundation for modern codebreaking today.

[andrewjackson]

Thank God for Liz Freeman and her husband. She saved the world with his assistance. She went unsung in history prior to 2008. PBS did a great job on this, and it should be mandatory viewing for all high school students especially girls. It's especially important at age 15 or 16 that girls realize the importance of their potential genius in math and science. They aren't just pretty things to be drooled over by young men.

[waldinewade-niedhammer]

This was a wonderful program. Woman empowering!

[patrickfarina]

WOW the way of righteousness is life: and in the pathway thereof there is no death. Proverbs 12:28